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Haqqani network designated terrorist organization by U.S.

Pakistan says that its forces are stretched thin in fighting an insurgency that already has killed more than 30,000 people and that it cannot also take on the Haqqanis. Many analysts attribute the military's reluctance to its historical ties to the Haqqani network's founder, Jalaluddin Haqqani, and an assessment that the group can be an important ally in Afghanistan after U.S. forces withdraw in 2014.

Congress wanted action. In July, it set a deadline to prod the administration into imposing blanket sanctions on the group by designating it a foreign terrorist organization

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U.S. officials cited disagreements about the designation. Some favored it, while others worried that it could elevate the Haqqanis from their current status as an amorphous, tribal movement. That could end up hurting counterterrorism efforts by increasing their appeal among would-be jihadists.

One option under consideration was that the State Department would announce its intention to declare the Haqqani network as a terrorist body, while leaving more time for all the legal hurdles involved in making such a designation. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss confidential evaluations.

Clinton has stressed that the administration was already pressuring the Haqqanis.

"We are drying up their resources, we are targeting their military and intelligence personnel and we are pressing the Pakistanis to step up their own efforts," she said.

Last month, the U.S. scored a major counterterror success when an unmanned drone strike in Pakistan near the Afghan border killed one of Jalaluddin Haqqani's sons, Badruddin.

Badruddin was considered a vital part of the Haqqani structure.

The State Department said in May 2011 that Badruddin Haqqani sat on the Miram Shah Shura, a group that controls all Haqqani network activities and coordinates attacks in southeastern Afghanistan. It also blamed him for the 2008 kidnapping of New York Times reporter David Rohde.

Jalaluddin Haqqani created his network while serving as a leader in the decade-long insurgency against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, which began in 1979. He developed extensive foreign contacts, getting money, weapons and supplies from Pakistani intelligence, which in turn received billions of dollars from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia.

He served as Afghanistan's justice minister after the Soviets left, and minister of tribal and border affairs after Taliban fundamentalists seized power in 1996. He joined the Taliban insurgency when the U.S. helped overthrow the regime after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Haqqani effectively retired in 2005, passing responsibility for day-to-day operations to his son Sirajuddin, who is accused of expanding the network's kidnapping and extortion operations. Reports also accuse the Haqqanis of lucrative drug trafficking and smuggling activity.

The U.S. already has designated Haqqani and his sons individually as terrorists.

Readers' Comments (1)

The designation of the Haqqani Taliban as a "terrorist organization" shows the U.S. desperation of fashioning a face-saving withdrawal from Afghanistan. The U.S. had tried to defeat the Haqqani network and failed. Then it tried to bribe it into an alliance with the Karzai regime, but the Haqqanis didn't want to help the U.S. keep their country occupied for a monthly U.S. salary.

Now the U.S. tries to scare the Haqqanis that if they insist on kicking the U.S. out and form a government, the U.S. "terrorist designation" label will prevent many countries from recognizing their regime! That gimmick wouldn't make any difference to Haqqanis because standing up to, or refusing to negotiate with the U.S., is a badge of honor for them in the eyes of the Muslim world!

As for the U.S. hope, that its rich Gulf allies would refrain from supporting the Taliban with its "terrorist label" slapped on them, that notion is misguided. They would do it clandestinely as they did during the Mullah Omar Taliban rule.

The U.S. "terrorist label" on the Haqqani Taliban, therefore, is another lollipop of the Obama presidential campaign, and a U.S. admission that they are unbeatable. The label, therefore, accords them prestige, and -with Pakistani help- it establishes them as the undefeated future rulers of Afghanistan! The $ trillions and GIs lives we lost there went all to waste!